Jeff Merkley—Oregon

In Oregon the mountains are big, the sky is bigger, and the tall green trees are everywhere you look. It’s a state blessed with an abundance of natural resources and an abundance of people who take pains to take care of each other. With his long history of service to his fellow citizens, Jeff Merkley has the ability and experience to unseat Gordon Smith and turn Oregon’s Senate presence as blue as his home state is green.

Jeff comes from deeply Oregonian roots. He’s the small-town son of a sawmill worker who, when they relocated to Portland when he was a young boy, gladly took his father’s wise advice: “Study hard and you can pursue any dream.” And study hard he did, both at home and abroad (he spent a summer as an exchange student in Ghana) – hard enough to get an undergrad degree from Stanford, a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Princeton, and get appointed a Presidential Management Fellow assigned to the Secretary of Defense.

After spending several more years honing his governmental skills analyzing nuclear weapons programs and policy for the Congressional Budget Office, Jeff came back to the cool green hills of home and turned his hand to helping families in need. From executive director of Habitat For Humanity to director of Housing Development at Affordable Solutions to launching the state’s first IDA program to help low-income families, he specialized in improving the lives of hard-working Oregonians. And that’s been the focus of his five terms of service in the state’s House of Representatives, too.

Jeff’s been an effective, efficient progressive force for positive change in a state where people care a lot about jobs, families, health care, education, the environment, and each other. His track record of accomplishments as Oregon’s Speaker of the House is impressive an all counts, and his special focus on making sure every citizen of his home state has every possible chance to pursue any of their dreams is a direct legacy of his father’s advice.

As Speaker, Jeff has also used his bully pulpit to denounce the unnecessary, unjustified war in Iraq and bring it to a prompt, honorable end while still insisting that those who serve in uniform get all the respect and support that they deserve when they come home. He’s fought against political corruption at home, and was one of the prominent voices calling for former AG Gonzales’ impeachment for cause. He’s long been a leader on alternative energy and environmental protection issues.

Any way you add it up, Jeff Merkley has achieved lots of great things to improve the lives of everyday Oregonians during his long years of service as a policy specialist in Washington and as a progressive legislator at home. Now it’s time for him to unseat his Roadblock Republican opponent and go on to achieve even greater things for them, and for the rest of us, in the United States Senate.



Jeff Merkley For Senate campaign site

Representative Jeff Merkley official site

Jeff Merkley Wikipedia entry